


A Dream Lies Dead Here

by ninhursag



Series: This Is Not How I Am [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Foster Care, Gen, Guilt, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 23:45:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20072587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: Julia Manes volunteers in the foster care system and helps children. Not the right children, but someone's children.Her latest assignment is a ten year old boy in state custody, and he's breaking her heart.





	A Dream Lies Dead Here

**Author's Note:**

> This was born out of one those ideas that hits you when you're awake at 2 am and won't let go.
> 
> Warnings : I have literally never been to New Mexico and have no idea how their foster system works. But this is totally the Hollywood system here, so work with me?

"Julia, I have a case for you," she got the call on a Monday, at lunch. "A boy in CYFD custody. Judge Avila wants a CASA assigned to him."

"Let me guess, the first hearing is tomorrow morning?" Julia said, shaking her head. "Let me check my calendar and--"

"Yeah, it's this afternoon," laughed the clerk. "Can you do it?"

So that was how she met ten year old Michael Guerin in a small conference room tucked in the corner of a courthouse. He was pushing the chair he sat in back and forth, making it scrape the ground with a nasty whining sound.

A small, underfed boy with a mop of curly hair that covered his eyes when he wanted it to. Someone had bathed him before he was brought here but his clothes were old, visibly worn out. The faint, sour scent of cigarette smoke lingered around him.

No one had washed away the bruises on his face and wrists.

He glared at her from between curls. "Who are you and why are you here?" he said, gracelessly. 

"Hello Michael. My name is Julia Manes," she said, calmly, offering a smile. "Julia. I'm your court appointed special advocate. Your casa. Have they told you what that means?"

"No," he said, with a shrug. "They don't tell me much. Like a caseworker? Or a lawyer?"

She mirrored the shrug, taking in the way he looked at her, his vocabulary. Bright. The thin case file on him hadn't suggested that. "A little like, but I've got one kid instead of fifty to worry about. My job is to get to know you and what you need and see if I can get it for you."

He rolled his eyes. The pens in a box in the corner rattled around. "I skipped lunch and I want some pizza. No I need some pizza." 

She smiled at him. Not afraid to ask. Good. "There's a place across the street," she said. "Come on."

His eyebrows went up and he stared at her. "Wait. Really?"

"Sure," she said. "That's the easiest ask I've had in a while. Do you know any card games?" She had a deck at the bottom of her purse.

So she ended up eating pizza and playing a game of go fish with a ten year who rolled his eyes about it but went along with it.

"Aren't you going to ask me any questions?" He finally said after winning a hand and making half a pie disappear.

"Way too many of them," she said agreeably, "but asking on a full stomach works for me."

"They're moving me out of the Frists' house," he said. More of an announcement than a question.

"Well yes. Cooking meth and taking in foster kids aren't really two jobs you can juggle successfully." That startled a laugh out of him.

"Can I have a milkshake?" he asked instead of responding directly. He gave her a smile that aimed at being cheeky and didn't quite get there.

She grinned at him. "Yeah, sure." She flagged down a waitress to get one.

"Cool," he said, but there was a hint of surprise again. Then, "am I going to a group home?"

She frowned. "Your caseworker is trying to arrange a family placement, but if she can't get one right away, yes. At least overnight."

He sighed. "They weren't that bad," he said mournfully. "The Frists. Other than the chemicals."

"Other than that," she nodded. She carefully avoided looking at his bruises.

"There are worse ones," he went on. "Like. A lot worse."

"I know," she said.

The waitress came by with a tall chocolate milkshake and he attacked it immediately. Growing boys. She half smiled.

"So how long are you my advocate for?" he asked suddenly.

"Probably at least a year. Unless you're adopted or move out of the county."

He shrugged. "And you, what, buy me milkshakes?"

She laughed.."I see how you're doing, talk to you, then your foster parents, your teachers and your caseworker and we come up with a plan to make things better for you."

That earned her an eyeroll and a disdainful, "well, I'll take the milkshakes."

"They are amazing milkshakes," she conceded.

Michael nodded and gave her another careful look. The table under them shook. He was probably kicking it. "He hit her. Bob Frist. He punched her. Amye. Not just one time. She cried a lot."

"And you?" Julia asked. She looked at him.

"Mostly, I went for cover." His eyes were big. Wet. He bit his lip. "She's an adult. Right? She could have left. Why didn't she leave?"

She sighed. There was a trick she'd been taught, in one of her training classes. To look at someone's shoulder so they'd think you were looking them in the eye. She had to sometimes, with kids. "It's complicated sometimes. With adults."

"She said she would. That she'd take me," he whispered. "Why is that complicated?"

"I'm sorry," Julia said, quiet and soft. "It shouldn't be."

She went home after the court hearing where the judge signed off on the new case plan and referred the Frists to the prosecutor's office. Told the office she'd be working from home. They were working on testing for the next code push and there was plenty she could do remotely.

When she was done, she drank a bottle of shitty wine all by herself and went to bed.

The first thing they told you in training classes was that it was about the kids, not you. This is not about you, Julia.

She didn't look at the pictures of her sons she had, set up on her desk, facing away from her.

She saw him about twice a week for two years while he bounced from group home to family placement back to group home. Some of the placements were fine, but temporary. Some were clearly horrible and about six months in, he started telling her when it wasn't safe.

"Can I stay with you?" he asked, quietly, only one time and never again. He didn't meet her eyes.

"I don't have a foster license," she said, not meeting his either. There were a few times she offered to get one, but she didn’t. She wasn’t sure… she’d have to explain about her kids then.

She had an extended argument with his teacher after taking a look at his grades and listening to him complain. It ended with her marching out of the school and back to her car, then across town and right into the office of a college roommate who was the headmaster of a 50k a year private school. A friend she hadn't seen in years, really, just occasionally touched base with on facebook. 

Hadn’t seen since right after she got married, really, not to speak to.

"I have a kid who should be on your interview list, Belinda," Julia said, while she was knocking on her office door. Like it hadn't been decades, like they were friends. After all, this wasn’t about her. "He needs a full ride. He's eleven, no family."

"This is one of your volunteer projects? I read about it, your company puts out a newsletter," Belinda said, a well manicured brow raised. Like she had been reading a newsletter a random security software company sent to its clients. "We have a commitment to having a diverse class here, of course, but..."

"He's a brilliant kid. The school he's in is a waste of everyone's time. Put him on your list, Belinda. Can you imagine how great it would look to your donors? Giving a foster kid a chance?"

"Julia, half the city wants their kids in this school." But that wasn't a dismissal. It could become one fast. 

"But he deserves it." Julia put her hands down on the desk that she was leaning over and shook her head. "Half the kids in his class can't read, they can't divide. The teacher is putting him in a corner with packets she downloaded and he's teaching himself calculus. Do you know what that's like?"

"You were a foster kid too," Belinda said. She didn’t move away. Her eyes were still ridiculously blue. "Is this a personal thing?"

Julia made a face. Ten years a CYFD kid until she aged out. People in college had known that, it wasn't a secret. Belinda had known about that. "This isn't about me," she said. "It's about Michael. The boy."

Belinda frowned at her, considering. "Arrange it on your end and I will on mine. The interview, it's the board's decision whether he gets a scholarship."

"Thank you," Julia said, the fight going out of her suddenly. She hadn't expected it to be that easy. "I appreciate this."

Belinda sighed. Perfectly. "You have friends, you know. You're allowed to ask for favors."

Julia stared at her. The words she wanted to say caught in her throat.

"I miss you," Belinda said. "You married that douche and I have missed you since then."

"Ok," Julia said. "Thank you." She fled. She was in her forties and running from her college roommate. Great.

Michael wasn't thrilled about the school until he saw the science lab and the programming classes. Then he shrugged, like, ok and suddenly turned on his own rough form of charm for the people testing and talking to him.

"The headmistress asked me about you," he said after. Smiling faintly. 

Julia shrugged enigmatically. "Really? That's nice for her."

Michael rolled his eyes and took the scholarship.

"Are you just helping me because you're sad you don't have kids?" Michael asked one day, over pizza, when he was annoyed at her for poking him about his Spanish homework.

"Pretty much," she said. "I could cry on you about it, but then you'd get snotty."

"Yeah." He paused. "You'd be a good mom, Julia."

She laughed like it didn't hurt. "I have reason to think that's not the case, but you're sweet, Michael."

He made a face. "I have reason to think I'm not sweet."

It's not about you Julia. Don't you dare make this about you. 

After polishing off enough to get to sleep that night Julia decided she had to do something about her drinking. It was going to make her into a stereotype. Another Navajo woman, this one all gussied up with a good job and a fancy degree, some volunteer work and still a drunk. 

A drunk with no kids. Lovely. 

She almost called Belinda, but didn't. 

Two years in and Michael got into a fist fight with a foster family's bio son. He laughed about it, painfully. "Trash versus bio, bio wins."

"You're not trash, Michael," she said sternly. The walls almost seemed to rattle with irritation when he glared at her. She studiously ignored that like she was always did.

"Caseworker says it's a group home again. No family wants me. Scared for their real kids," he muttered, head down.

She sighed. "I'll talk to her."

"Why? It's not like you want me to live with you or anything." Another mutter. He didn't look at her.

"It's not like that," she said.

He didn't say anything. "What about Roswell?" He asked suddenly.

She blinked. Hands clenched. "What about it?"

"Can I go to a group home in Roswell?" And there was something in his expression she didn't understand, had never seen before. "Caseworker said she won't take me out of school, but if you asked her?"

"Why would you want to leave the best school in the state to go to Roswell?" She finally managed to ask. "What's in Roswell?" Like she couldn’t guess.

He looked at his feet. "Please," he said. "Could you do this for me?"

The last thing he said, when he packed his suitcase to go to a group home in Roswell of all the places was, "you should call Headmistress B already, she's got a thing for you. It’s really sad."

She laughed at him. "Thanks for the heads-up," she said, as if he wasn't being ridiculous. 

Then he got into his caseworker’s car and was gone.

Belinda showed up on her doorstep with a bottle of rosé and a smile. "Have some time for a friend?" She asked.

"I keep saying I'm giving up drinking," Julia said. Then sighed and shook her head. "I'll get right on that tomorrow."

They polished off the whole bottle and watched stupid reality TV before Belinda looked her right in the eye. "What did he do to you?"

And Julia could only laugh. "Believe me, it was nothing I didn't deserve. Why are you even here?"

And Belinda didn't say a word, just sat with her until she finally cried.

"What the fuck, Julia," she got the call from him around midnight some weeks later. "What the actual fuck? You have kids who live in fucking Roswell and you forgot to mention that?"

She stared at the wall. "Believe it or not, our time together was supposed to be about you, Michael, not my personal life." 

There was a long pause, harsh breathing, just short of a sob. "We talked about my personal life."

She shut her eyes and controlled her breathing. "You're a kid. It's my job to help you. It's not your job to take on an adult's problems."

There was another painful breath that hurt to hear. "I don't get it. Why don't you even see them? They're you're kids."

"Michael. I'm divorced from their dad. This was part of the terms of the divorce. Again, it's not my role to discuss this with you." Her voice came out cool, robotic, exhausted. 

His was anything but calm. "That doesn't make any sense. Really?"

"I can't talk about this with you," she repeated.

"But don't you want them? That makes no sense. If you hate kids, why are you a fucking kid advocate?"

"Please don't make me hang up the phone. I don't want to do that," she said sharply. 

"I don't believe you. I can't believe I thought you'd make a good mom. What the hell?" he hissed into the line. 

He was the one who hung up.

The next time she got a call from Michael was years later. "Did you know he hits Alex?" he said, without so much as saying his name. His voice had changed, finished its teenage shift, but she didn't wonder who he was.

"No, I didn't know that," she said, because she didn't, not for sure. It wasn't shocking. Her baby, soft and sweet, curled up next to her. Her little one.

She'd been that close to taking him and running when the divorce came through, but he'd have found her. He always found her. 

There was a pause. His anger was as obvious in his voice as it had been when he was a boy. He was still a boy. "Did he hit you?"

"What do you think, Michael?" she asked quietly. 

There was a laugh, pained. "I think he did. That explains a lot, right?" 

She sighed. Ok. "And what are you going to do with that?"

There was a sharp intake of breath over the phone. "I'm in love with your son, Julia. With Alex."

She sucked in a breath of her own that was just short of fear. Ok, lie. Not short. "Michael. Stay away from, Jesse Manes. Stay the fuck away from him, you hear me?"

"I said your son. Not him."

"I heard you. He is dangerous, ok? He is dangerous to you. Stay away from him. Please, listen to me on this one." She wasn't going to say she wasn't stupid. She wasn't going to say that things on shelves rattled with Michael's moods. She wasn't going to tell him what she knew. But she could warn him this far. 

"Why would he be dangerous to me?" Michael scoffed. "I'm not afraid of some asshole just because he's got a uniform on. I'm not a girl or his kid, he can't hurt me."

She closed her eyes. "Can you please, please trust me on this one?"

"I will if you come here and tell that to me and Alex in person," he said, quieter.

"I can't do that," she whispered. "I can't."

"Right. Ok, fine. I'll bring him to you."

"Michael, please," she repeated. 

She heard some muttering and then an exhale. "Look, it doesn't matter, we're getting out of this shit town soon. Forget it. Just forget it."

The next time she heard from anyone it was Alex, quiet and tired and beautiful, 28 years old, on her doorstep. His hair looked just as soft as it had when he was a baby, his eyes as sweet and serious.

It was out of the blue, no call ahead. Belinda was in the kitchen with her ridiculously fancy Cuisinart making so much noise she didn't hear the doorbell, so Julia answered it and there he was. 

"Mom," he said, but she knew him before he did, like it was in her bones. "I… um. Yeah. I have some questions if you don't mind?"

She closed her eyes. "Right. You'd better come in."

**Author's Note:**

> I appreciate and adore feedback of all kinds!
> 
> Please come and talk about feelings with me haha.
> 
> You can also find me as ninhursag at dreamwidth https://ninhursag.dreamwidth.org/ or ninswhimsy on Tumblr


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